Friday, April 6, 2012

Hundreds of Militants Join al-Qaeda Group in Yemen

An extract from a piece published in Arabic on al-Tagheer.com about a published report that states "Saudi militants entering Yemen legally to join al-Qaeda group in Yemen." The extract translated to English by me.

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An investigative report revealed that hundreds of militants from Gulf countries came to Yemen during the past three weeks and they joined the group of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula after there was an audi-announcement aired last month, made by the second man in al-Qaeda, the saudi Saeed al-Shehri, who's known by "Abo Sufian", to mobilise militants to Yemen.

The report made by Al-Watan stated that there are systematic group circles around the Gulf countries that work on instigating and attracting youth. The group circles take care of importing the youth till they reach Yemen, while another group circle would take care in receiving them in Yemen and setting them enter al-Qaeda military.

According to the report, the importing process happens legally since the coming militants are not registered as black-listed in the authorities registration papers but there is a smal number of them come smuggled. The ones coming legally often come with tourism visas even though the situation is still not stable.

The report stated additionally, "During the last week alone in March, the authorities registered 5,571 people from Gulf countries' nationalities, mostly from Saudi Arabia, who entered Yemen through the borders in Hajah and al-Mahra provinces with the purpose of visiting and tourism, which made the authorities to investigate on that and discover those systematic group circules that lead to preparing militants to join al-Qaeda in Yemen.

The report described incidents of clashes between the Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood group, and the Shia'at Houthis group. The clashes took place at Hajah in Kasher and A'ahem in Sa'adah which has close border with Saudi Arabia. The clashes are "trap" by al-Qaeda group to provoke the Saudi regime. The group operates that in coordination with political, military, and tribal sides in Yemen that have good contact with the Saudi government. By that it's meant the Islah political party in Yemen led by sons of Sheikh al-Ahmer and Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a key general and leader of the First Armored Division.